Starlionblue

"Everybody" always says that because for CPU/GPU intensive gaming a desktop will give you better performance at a lower price with more upgradeability. That being said, the laptop you linked would more than adequate for KSP.

If you live in the US, NewEgg or Amazon are a good start. I agree with reinstalling. More work but you get a "fresh start". Do ensure you have a proper backup and test your backup. On a laptop, the HDD is typically the performance bottleneck. Upgrading to an SSD makes a very noticeable performance difference. During KSP play itself, as in launching rockets, you won't notice as much of a difference, but load times will be improved noticeably, e.g. start of game, going to launchpad and so on. Bootup will be much faster, and apps in general will load faster.

I'd love to see some speed per Thermal Design Power comparisons. As I understand it, the Ryzens tends to run rather hotter than their Intel counterparts. I'd rather have a PC with quieter fans than eke out that last bit of performance. Either way KSP doesn't really require bleeding edge CPU performance. I've been running a "lower power" 65W i7 for the past few years and KSP runs fine. But that's just me.

Love ThinkPads. I've had about 15-20 of them through the years. I've always found TrackPoint easier to use than a trackpad, but maybe that's just habit. Thanks for the tip. The big fan is a plus for noise reasons. However it still has one of those dinky PSU fans, and I'm worried about a high pitched whine.

Good info thanks. I'll try to find time for more testing in the next few days. Either way, it ran nice and smoothly. Night and day compared to high graphics resolution and settings.

Excellent testing idea. I ran the graphics down to 1024x768 with most of the details stuff off or "low". Then I launched a 340 part vehicle. CPU usage by KSP stayed at 30-35% throughout and everything was nice and crisp. (GPU usage was also quite low, of course.) (Yes, I know bits are falling off during staging. I think some mod didn't make it through the latest update. ) This would indicate that there is quite some CPU headroom and an eGPU could be a workable solution. Time to go shopping.

Thanks for the video. Useful info there. My monitor is an LG very similar to the curved one shown in the video. Resolution is 3440x1440. My desktop has a GTX770 and no problem running KSP at excellent frame rates in fullscreen full res on that. I'd probably be willing to spend US$600-700 to get a decent eGPU solution, of course depending on if that is possible with my current laptop.

Good morning all. I have an eGPU question. I'm trying to downsize from my desktop to just my laptop. The only games I play are KSP and (rarely) Civ VI, so I don't need cutting edge graphics. I have a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon with an Intel i5. It's perfect for when I travel. I tried KSP on it and it's ok on the laptop screen but on my big monitor it crawls. Integrated graphics obviously. I don't play KSP on trips so I just need something for home. I've been looking at getting an external GPU. Either the Lenovo Graphics Dock (Pros: tiny and quiet. Con: Not upgradeable.) or the Razer Core X Chroma (Pros: upgradeable GPU. Cons: Larger, more costly, and apparently not super-quiet). Anyone have experience with eGPUs and KSP? Obviously the graphics performance will be orders of magnitude better, but will the laptop CPU become a big bottleneck?

Thx. Much obliged.

Good morning all. I'm trying to downsize from my desktop to just my laptop. The only games I play are KSP and (rarely) Civ VI, so I don't need cutting edge graphics. I have a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon with an Intel i5. It's perfect for when I travel. I tried KSP on it and it's ok on the laptop screen but on my big monitor it crawls. Integrated graphics obviously. I don't play KSP on trips so I just need something for home. I've been looking at getting an external GPU. Either the Lenovo Graphics Dock (Pros: tiny and quiet. Con: Not upgradeable.) or the Razer Core X Chroma (Pros: upgradeable GPU. Cons: Larger, more costly, and apparently not super-quiet). Anyone have experience with eGPUs and KSP? Obviously the graphics performance will be orders of magnitude better, but will the laptop CPU become a big bottleneck?

Nicely done. And yes, I agree that it is very much FBW. I got to thinking about the wobble on my jury-rigged launch pad. Maybe if I used some struts from the beams to the second stage to hold it steady...

Hand cranking it on Eve ascent. Thats hardcore.

Eve is something else indeed All 1.25m I think is too long and slender for good control. I tried that too You can download the craft file from the link in my post above. The only non-stock item is the MechJeb part.

Indeed. This vehicle can do a stable orbit higher than 100km from an equatorial sea-level location on Eve.

Here's a link to the craft file on Dropbox, btw. Forgot I could do that! If you need a good low level testing spot on Eve, try lat 0, long 18 in HyperEdit. For the ascent profile in Mechjeb, try: Start turn at 10km or 362m/s Turn shape 63.7%